TAYLOR: Reno challenge: Getting in the zone

Halifax architect floats plan for ‘lighter hand’ on rules for changes to properties

People planning changes to properties in Halifax face a bureaucratic structure that makes it difficult to understand the rules, says Halifax architect Tom Emodi. (TIM KROCHAK/Staff)

The amount of red tape faced by smaller construction projects in Halifax is often time-consuming, costly and frustrating.

Anyone who has ever wanted to make changes to a property, especially on peninsular Halifax, would probably agree that adjusting the rules to allow for quicker and easier development decisions would pay off for both the city and the project proponent.

Yet there is a strict adherence to the bureaucratic structure that surrounds planning and development in the city.

A proponent of greater housing density, Tom Emodi, principal with Teal Architects, says he learned just how difficult it was after his company acquired a single-family home in an area zoned R2 on North Street that, in theory, was allowed to contain two units in a single structure.

“We wanted to convert that single-family home into two — a two-bedroom unit and a single-bedroom unit on top. We applied for a planning permit and the city said no.

“It turns out the lot was determined to be too narrow for two units by a few inches. And the only way to possibly turn the existing single-family dwelling into two units was only if we stayed within the existing building envelope.

“One inch outside the envelope is no good.”

After doing some research, Emodi says, his firm discovered it could rip down the building and make a new structure that was roughly twice the size, with more bedrooms and more intrusion on the neighbours.

“The building would be taller, deeper, bigger, more people in it, that would be OK, but it couldn’t be two units.”

Emodi says R2 zones, which allow for two units on the peninsula and in downtown Dartmouth, are like overgrown gardens, with policies created in response to neighbour concerns.

“So, if you try and negotiate yourself through this maze, it becomes really confusing. … You have to have a planning degree, almost, to understand what you can and cannot do by right.

“It took us, at the end of the day, pretty close to 15 months to get the permit, which we should have gotten in the first place.”

Because Teal objected to the original rejection of its plan, it required a public hearing to determine whether creating two small units in the home could be approved, he says.

“It involved numerous people’s time, numerous people’s effort, the five-member Northwest Community Council, all of which, in a simple planning review, would be a day or two of work for some knowledgeable planning official.”

When developers complain about the amount of time it takes to get permission to build or redevelop a building in Halifax, the usual response is to point out that it would take even longer to get the same permission in Toronto or Vancouver.

Emodi believes changes need to be made to improve the planning department in Halifax.

Any construction project under a certain value, he says, should be handled by an experienced development officer or planner and not go through the same level of bureaucracy as larger projects.

And the need for a “lighter hand” on some development projects shouldn’t be restricted to residential projects, he says.

Teal has designed a small extension to 5466 Spring Garden Rd., for Westwood Developments Ltd., says Emodi.

There weren’t any storeys added to the structure, yet the owner was initially asked to have a survey done to measure the height of the building to ensure it did not infringe on viewplanes from Citadel Hill. Eventually, a letter from a surveyor stating the obvious was enough, but it is the type of bureaucracy that development faces in Halifax, he says.

Emodi says he believes simple changes to planning rules would relieve city staff from a lot of work they’re doing on smaller projects and allow them to concentrate on larger and more complicated development proposals.

It is an interesting idea, which would be even more appealing if it had a chance at being adopted by the regional government.